Music composition professor mixes East and West in newly released CD

UH Mānoa professor of music composition Donald Reid Womack's CD "Walk Across the Surface of the Sun" was released by Albany Records.

"Walk Across the Surface of the Sun" presents eight of Womack's compositions for Japanese and Western instruments, and features performances by UH Mānoa faculty members Iggy Jang, I-Bei Lin, former UH Mānoa faculty member Thomas Rosenkranz, and the Tokyo-based instrumental ensemble AURA-J.

Womack describes the CD as "the structure of Western classical music, the energy and grit of rock, and the sound of Japanese instruments, all thrown together, to see what would come out!" Excerpts from "Walk Across the Surface of the Sun" were broadcast throughout Japan on NHK and Germany on Westdeutscher Rundfunk, as well as on Kansas City Public Radio and Hawai’i Public Radio.

Womack has been a faculty member at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa since 1994.